Bowing to Elephants: Tales of a Travel Junkie - Paperback

by Mag Dimond (Author)

In Bowing to Elephants, a woman seeking love and authenticity comes to understand herself as a citizen of the world through decades of wandering the globe. During her travels she sees herself more clearly as she gazes into the feathery eyes of a 14,000-pound African elephant and looks for answers to old questions in Vietnam and the tragically ravaged landscape of Cambodia.
Bowing to Elephants is a travel memoir with a twist―the story of an unloved rich girl from San Francisco who becomes a travel junkie, searching for herself in the world to avoid the tragic fate of her narcissistic, alcoholic mother. Haunted by images of childhood loneliness and the need to learn about her world, Dimond journeys to far-flung places―into the perfumed chaos of India, the nostalgic, damp streets of Paris, the gray, watery world of Venice in the winter, the reverent and silent mountains of Bhutan, and the gold temples of Burma. In the end, she accepts the death of the mother she never really had―and finds peace and her authentic self in the refuge of Buddhist practice.

Author Biography

Mag Dimond has been a world traveler since her mother took her to live in Italy from ages eleven to fourteen. She traveled extensively in Europe and Central America, and ventured to such exotic landscapes as India, Cambodia, Bhutan, Japan, Kenya, China, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cuba. After a career teaching writing to college students in San Francisco and Taos, she now volunteers as a writing tutor at 826 Valencia, an esteemed literacy program launched by David Eggers. She is a practicing Buddhist and dedicated member of Spirit Rock Meditation Center north of San Francisco. Excerpts from Bowing to Elephants have been honored in American Literary Review, Travelers Tales Solas Awards, the Tulip Tree "Stories that Must be Told" awards, and the 2017 William Faulkner Wisdom Awards. Additionally, Dimond has published essays at Elephant Journal, an online magazine with a readership of almost two million. You can find her essays on her website, www.magdimond.com.